"Well, a certain place is paved with good intentions, and having felt

all that so strongly, you will see what a terrible remorse it bred

in me when, in the midst of my fine aims for other people, I myself

fell." He then told her of that time of his life to which allusion has been

made when, tossed about by doubts and difficulties in London, like a

cork on the waves, he plunged into eight-and-forty hours' dissipation

with a stranger. "Happily I awoke almost immediately to a sense of my folly," he

continued. "I would have no more to say to her, and I came home. I

have never repeated the offence. But I felt I should like to treat

you with perfect frankness and honour, and I could not do so without

Advertisement..

telling this. Do you forgive me?" She pressed his hand tightly for an answer.

"Then we will dismiss it at once and for ever!--too painful as it is

for the occasion--and talk of something lighter."

"O, Angel--I am almost glad--because now YOU can forgive ME! I have

not made my confession. I have a confession, too--remember, I said

so." "Ah, to be sure! Now then for it, wicked little one."

"Perhaps, although you smile, it is as serious as yours, or more so."

"It can hardly be more serious, dearest."

"It cannot--O no, it cannot!" She jumped up joyfully at the hope.

"No, it cannot be more serious, certainly," she cried, "because 'tis

just the same! I will tell you now."

She sat down again. Their hands were still joined. The ashes under the grate were lit

by the fire vertically, like a torrid waste. Imagination might have

beheld a Last Day luridness in this red-coaled glow, which fell on

his face and hand, and on hers, peering into the loose hair about her

brow, and firing the delicate skin underneath. A large shadow of her

shape rose upon the wall and ceiling. She bent forward, at which

each diamond on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad's; and

pressing her forehead against his temple she entered on her story of

her acquaintance with Alec d'Urberville and its results, murmuring

the words without flinching, and with her eyelids drooping down.




Most Popular